Thank you to Jenny B. for taking the minutes of the last meeting, which were agreed and signed.

Flower tubs: Caroline has had a message from Carol Ripley, Chairperson of the Civic Society, regarding the possibility of having two tubs of winter bulbs and flowers outside the Library when the Council remove the existing ones. Carol said that she would raise the question at their meeting, being held tonight. Margaret W is attending the meeting.

Carol also sent a copy of the Honley in Bloom report, which was passed around. The report is very positive, praising the 'It's Your Neighbourhood ' Group for addressing problems including litter, street furniture, derelict/overgrown areas and for enhancing planting in the village centre, with hanging baskets and flower beds with both annual and perennial plantings. The report went on to say that the group had made a successful start with engaging the local business community and that mutually beneficial relationships with the local church and library have been established. (See attached for full report)

Joe has bought 'Thank You' cards to send to the Civic Society and the Village Trust.

Photo of Suzanne: Stephen has printed the photograph of Suzanne, which Anne has framed and it is now on display in the Library.

Land Registry: It was agreed that no further action regarding this will be taken at present.

Letter to Graham Turner: Following publication of the letter in the Examiner, Caroline has received appreciative emails from Carol Stump and Mark Redman on behalf of Library Services.

2. Events

Events Group Feedback: Anne was unable to attend the meeting due to illness but her report was presented by Linda S.

'An Audience with Julia Deakin' event on 22nd September was another successful and enjoyable evening, having 37 guests.

Julia is a gifted poet and gave excellent readings of her poems followed by a Q&A session. She also had copies of her books for sale, which she signed. Julia declined a fee and instead the Friends made a donation of £42 to her favoured charity 'The Shannon Trust Reading Plan – by prisoners for prisoners.' We hope to invite a speaker from the Trust to come along to talk to us about it later in the year.

This was another great team effort, thank you to all the Events team and helpers.

Next event: Tuesday 1st December from 7.00 – 9.00p.m. Christmas RAR featuring '8-In-A-Bar' (all members of Honley Male Voice Choir). This will be a ticket only event, priced at £2 per ticket.

'8-In-A-Bar' will be performing at the start of the evening and, after festive refreshments, we'll be having audience readings.

This will be a brilliant end to another year of events to be proud of – well done to ALL.

The next Events meeting is on Monday 19th October at 7 p.m. at Honley library. All welcome.

Christmas Market Stall: Jenny L. has booked the stall for Saturday 5th December, which cost £20 and she outlined ideas and what is needed to make it successful. A discussion followed, together with further suggestions as follows:-

Two volunteers will be needed to cover each of the four shifts, which are

9.00 – 10.30; 10.30 – 12; 12 – 1.30; 1.30 – 3.30. Nita said that she could help to set the stall up and clear up at the end of the day.

Linda S. agreed to bring her bunting for the stall and there is also a short length of bunting at the library.

On the stall there will be FOHL leaflets, bookmarks (Jenny B) and badges; a Bran Tub for children (Nita and Margaret) Christmas Cards (Jenny L) 'Guess the book page' (Jenny L). We will also have books for sale, priced at 50p for hardback novels and 20p for paperbacks. 'Coffee Table' books will be priced individually. The Library has also agreed that we can have some discard books, which we will sell for 10p.

Contributions of books for sale or small gifts for the Bran Tub may be brought to the Reading Group on Wednesday 11th November or left at the Library throughout November. We will also need a supply of carrier bags.

Stephen Dufton offered to source a supplier of canvas shopping bags, which could be printed with the FOHL logo. These could be sold on the Christmas stall and afterwards in the Library.

Joe agreed to provide a float from FOHL funds of different denominations, totalling £50

All details will be finalised at the Events meeting.

Christmas Tree Festival at Trinity Church: Caroline said that we have been invited to decorate a tree. The 'Knit and Natter' Group are knitting ornaments to decorate a tree and Louise agreed to ask them if they wanted to share with FOHL.

Various ideas for decorations were put forward, including bookmarks, library cards, volunteer badges and Liz suggested making mini books out of matchboxes etc. It was also suggested that we could have a 'craft afternoon' at the library to make the decorations. Caroline said that we could borrow her 5ft Christmas tree, which can be put up on Friday 4th December between 9am and 6pm and taken down on Sunday 6th December between 4pm and 6pm.

Friends of Libraries Network Event: This is at Huddersfield Library on Monday 12th October at 5.45pm, Caroline, Joe and Pat T are attending and another place is available. Please contact Caroline if you are interested This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

There will be a number of workshops, including one on fundraising presented by Caroline and Joe.

Friends of Beaumont Park, together with Kirklees and Huddersfield Literary Festival are hosting a Poetry Competition. It is open to all age groups and is based on various themes, with the common theme being Beaumont Park. Winning Poems will be announced in March 2016 as part of the Literary Festival and will be published in a booklet to be sold. The most exciting part of the project is that the winning poems will then form a poetry trail around the Park on plaques at various locations. We hope to get a poster and more details shortly.

Open Afternoon for FOHL: To be discussed after Christmas

3. Developments

Honley Library will remain a Kirklees building and running costs will be covered by Library Services at the present time. However, opening hours will reduce to 15 hours per week from April 2016 and Cllr Baggott warned that if volunteer hours fall below 25% of library opening hours, then it is likely that the library will close.

Visits to Honley Schools: Caroline has visited Honley High School and has spoken to the person who organises work experience placements and volunteer opportunities, to promote work in the Library. She will arrange to visit the Junior School later this month and Jenny agreed to go with her.

Pre-School children from Honley Infant School are visiting the Library in two groups on 13th October at 10am and 1.30pm. Each session will be for approximately 45 minutes. If any library volunteers would like to help at either or both sessions, please contact

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Website: Linda has updatedthe Events section of the website and Pat will update the Agendas and Minutes sections later this week. We discussed forming a small group of people who would have the ability to edit the site. Stephen Dufton said that he would be willing to join a website group. If anyone else is interested, please contact Joe or Pat. We also discussed the need for a Facebook account and perhaps also a Twitter account to attract more young people. Linda said that she does put details of FOHL events on her own Facebook page but it would be better to have our own page linked to the website. Joe said that he would contact Jon to discuss this and would also remind him to change the photo of the library on the website.

FOHL Leaflet and Bookmark: Jenny B and Linda S have done a lot of work in putting together a draft leaflet and a bookmark. There was a discussion around minor points but all agreed thatthey had done an excellent job. Jenny should receive information about costs from the publisher tomorrow and will let Joe know. Joe said that it might be possible to apply for a grant to cover the costs if necessary. Thank you very much to Jenny and Linda for their excellent work.

4. Treasurer's Report

Joe said that he has paid out £20 for the Christmas Market stall and has received £48 from the Julia Deakin event. The cash balance is now £30.48 and we have £376.70 in the bank. We are still owed £100 from Kirklees for providing refreshments for the Community Event. Joe said that he would chase this up again.

5. Library Volunteers

The Library Volunteer rota system is working well and all sessions have been covered. It was proposed that we should have a Christmas get-together for the volunteers, which will be discussed at the Events meeting.